FTC

The Federal Trade Commission and Uber announced a settlement today which allows the FTC two decades of privacy and security audits. This announcement is the next step in Uber settling disputes with the FTC - the second settlement they've made this year. In January of this year, Uber agreed to a settlement of $20-million for exaggerating potential earnings in effort to draw in drivers.

It has been years in the making, but parent can finally have some amount of reprieve. Between 2011 and 2016, more than $70 million worth of purchases have been made on Amazon. None of them made by the account owners. Instead, they were unwittingly made by their offspring, leading to an investigation and eventual charges by the FTC. Now the FTC proudly announces that affected customers will be finally be given their due.

Chip maker Qualcomm has been having a rough couple of months, not only getting sued by Apple — one of its largest customers — for unfair licensing costs, but also being accused of anti-competitive tactics by the Federal Trade Commission. In the case of the latter, now some of Qualcomm's biggest rivals have chimed in, offering statements to the FTC in support of their monopoly accusations.

Vizio will pay $2.2m in penalties to settle a huge privacy lawsuit, that alleged its smart TVs tracked millions of viewers and then sold that personal data without permission. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in a joint-complaint filed with the New Jersey Attorney General, Vizio automatically tracked what owners of its connected TV sets were watching, despite not warning viewers that the monitoring was taking place. That information was then sold to advertisers and others for a profit.

Qualcomm has been accused by the Federal Trade Commission of anticompetitive patent tactics, with the FTC filing a federal court complaint alleging the chip maker used nefarious tactics to maintain a monopoly on mobile processors. The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California today, argues that Qualcomm used standards-essential patents it holds to demand elevated royalties and other license payments from phone manufacturers. That would contravene the FTC Act.

If you’re an AT&T mobile customer (or you used to be one), you may see a bill credit in the next couple months or find a check in the mail soon. According to the FTC, AT&T has mailed the first round of checks to former customers refunding some of the money they spent due to the carrier's alleged bill cramming issue. Current AT&T customers -- of which about 2.7 million are affected -- will see their refund in the form of a bill credit within the next 75 days.

Influencer marketing has been an increasingly contentious issue, with the FTC recently calling out deceptive sponsored social media posts as the first part of a crackdown against them. The commission wants to see more transparency with those posts, but is noticeably quiet on a related issue: influencer marketing targeted specifically at children. As a result, three consumer watchdogs have filed a complaint with the FTC, requesting that it do something about the problem.

While some types of sponsored content are easy to spot, that kind of transparency hasn't quite made its way into the social media realm. Tweets, status updates, Instagram photos and more dot the digital landscape with celebrities holding or using products, slyly showcasing notable brands to their thousands or millions of followers. Often times, these posts are advertisements the individual is getting paid to publish...but rarely are the statuses flagged as such.

Apple, Google, and a host of other smartphone makers and US carriers have found themselves the subject of a mobile security investigation. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have kicked off a joint inquiry to figure out how smartphones and other devices are kept secure and up-to-date, given the increasing number of hacking attempts and the amount of personal data users now generally carry around in their pockets or purses.

Sources say the Federal Trade Commission is expanding its investigation into Google and whether it is using Android’s dominance to throw around its own weight. The investigation started in 2015; according to one source, the FTC wants a look at the evidence gathered by European regulators in their own case against Google and Android. Reportedly, FTC personnel have asked two companies for data recently, hinting at an expanded data gathering phase.

Volkswagen's dieselgate fall-out woes continue, with the news today that yet another US government agency is suing the automaker over its diesel adverts. VW has admitted to fitting a "defeat device" to hundreds of thousands of cars, artificially reducing emissions when the car spotted it was being tested but then pushing out exponentially more nitrogen oxide than regulations permit under normal use.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued warnings to a handful of Android app developers using controversial software that could invade users' privacy without their knowledge. Known as "SilverPush," the advertising framework can use an Android device's microphone to listen for television shows in the background, in turn providing third-party advertisers with information on users' viewing habits.